In recent years, management of marketing campaigns has become increasingly complex due to vast data collection, storage, and analysis capabilities pertaining to customers and potential customers. Further complicating marketing campaign management is the existence of growing number of channels available for collection of data and for transmission of targeted marketing materials based upon the collected data.
Targeted marketing messages can be designed to compel individual consumers to purchase specific products or services. Increasingly, organizations are using multiple marketing channels, including outbound channels such as direct mail, telemarketing, e-mail, and direct response television, to deliver these messages to their customers. In some circumstances, organizations are also exploiting inbound channels, such the Web, customer call centers, and point of sale facilities. Such multi-channel integration provides the potential for retailers to deliver consistent messaging across all of their customer channels, both inbound and outbound.
The increase in the number of marketing campaigns, the improving ability the market has to capture and retain detailed information on customer transactions, and the tact that all of this data is being managed and used by more and more people, create a greater need for integrated tools and systems to manage the data generated and repeatedly used by these organizations.
One of the initial steps in organizing a targeted marketing campaign has been the collection of data. As set forth above, data capture has become much more complex and diverse. Data may be captured from POS terminals, online purchases, retailers, etc. After the data is collected, it may be stored in a database accessible to marketers.
Upon the initiation of a marketing campaign, marketers must formulate requirements for campaign targets. The requirements may relate to purchasing behaviors, demographic characteristics, credit rating, or other factors.
Based on particular marketing requirements and the collected data, recipients are selected from available databases to create a list of recipients, also known as the campaign list. The list is, at least in part, based on data collected pertaining to customer demographic and behavioral characteristics.
However, after the initial creation stage, the list is modified based on regulations pertaining to the distribution of marketing materials or other limiting factors known as suppressions. The suppressions may restrict available recipients based on a number of factors including time of transmission, location of recipient, or other factors.
After creation, the lists are implemented by marketers for distribution of marketing materials. As set forth above, the marketing materials may be distributed through one or more diverse communication channels.
Data collection, retrieval, and creation of campaign lists have historically been accomplished manually. However, manual list construction and fulfillment often requires several days to one or more weeks. Thus, a system is needed that can automatically perform these functions, but can be adjusted to allow manual intervention when required.
In recent years, due to the growing complexity and volume of data as well as the size of the marketing campaigns initiated, efforts have been made to automate much of the marketing campaign process. However, the currently available methods and systems have been insufficient for satisfying marketing campaign demands. In particular, current solutions have been unable to handle data volume with adequate speed and additionally have been cumbersome and difficult to use. Automated systems frequently fail to allow sufficient manual intervention to enable correction.
Furthermore, although existing systems may include automated steps, they generally require computer professionals to create code for records selection based on specific campaign parameters. The time, effort, and resources required for this process significantly reduce campaign efficiency and increase campaign cost.
Thus, a solution is needed for campaign management that automatically incorporates requirements, selects records based on the requirements and generates a list with all necessary information to facilitate distribution of marketing materials. A solution is further needed that makes user intervention in the automated process simple and accessible.